Dorwinion is a land first mentioned in The Hobbit, the source of a heady wine much favoured by the
Wood Elves of Mirkwood and no doubt other lands besides. It sits at the southern end of a trade
route from Long Lake Esgaroth and the Iron Hills in the north, to the Sea of Rhun in the south. Little
is known of this land other than that it was inhabited by a race of Northmen and that, for a time at
least in the Third Age, it was part of Gondor’s sprawling empire. The easternmost outpost of the
West perhaps, for to its east beyond the vast inland Sea of Rhun were the vast, empty forests,
marshlands, steppes and deserts sts of Rhun itself, a wild unknown land full of fierce tribes of Men
and uncharted on any known map. Who then were these Northmen, how did they live, and what role
did they play in the ancient history of Middle Earth? You can read one interpretation of them in
Saruman and the Blue Wizards,